Liza Alexandrova-Zorina - The Little Man

The funeral procession snaked blackly through the town. The coffin was carried on the broad shoulders of gravediggers, their faces sombre as the statues on tombs. Both sides of the street were crowded with people come to pay their last respects to the Councillor. «If you can't intimidate someone, you have to buy them. If you can't buy someone, you have to intimidate them,» Antonov had loved to say. So people preferred to say nothing about him. And now they sprinkled curses as well as crimson carnations onto the black-draped coffin. He was remembered for the young girls he had seduced, for the murders of his rivals, and for flooding the town with out-of-date food. Pursing their lips, the old ladies spat in his wake while the men folk clinked their glasses and drank to the killer's health. Only Petrovna, scurrying after the coffin her head hung low like a faded funeral carnation, wrung her hands and wept: «Oh, my master, my master!»

«Oh, yes, I know all about these ‘masters',» Kolya the plumber used to spit when he came to mend the Antonovs' pipes. «Bloody aristocrats!»

But Petrovna, coming out in blotches at the insult, fingered the gilt cross she had been given by Antonov's wife.

«Of course, they're my masters, benefactors. They took me in, gave me work…»

Kolya tossed away his spanner, losing his temper:

«He's fresh from behind the shop-counter and his wife used to be the book-keeper on a state farm. She used to steal frozen chickens,» he muttered, lowering his voice as if he was afraid they'd hear him. «And you call them masters! I went to school with them. We learnt the ABC together. And now they're masters and I'm a servant?»

Shaking her head, the woman simply withdrew into the kitchen and with nothing better to do she washed the clean plates again, mumbling above the sound of the water. «Masters!» the plumber repeated, rattling his tools crossly.

The crazy Chief ran behind the coffin, trying to see into the dead man's face. His pockets were stuffed with sweets and apples, given him by Antonov's relatives so that their kindness to the town's fool who was once the chief of police might win God's favour and atone for Antonov's sins. His wife had taken refuge from his countless infidelities in a church on the outskirts of town built from the same grey brick that was used in the houses. She gave donations to the church and meekly attended services, singing along with the choir. And now she walked beside the local priest, severe and straight as a pole.

Saam watched the procession from a café window.

«That's not our style,» he said, continuing an interrupted conversation. «Why should we want to kill him?»

Lapin squirmed in his chair. It felt like police questioning.

«Maybe it was someone from outside?»

Saam didn't reply. He fiddled morosely with the tablecloth.

«You run the whole town. All the dens, all the gangs… A cat can't eat a mouse without you knowing about it!»

Saam smirked but still said nothing.

«Why did you go to the garage? Who rang you? What did they say?»

«Oh, Captain, you'll never be a major!» sang Saam with an affected yawn to show the conversation was over.

As he watched the investigator go, Saam remembered him hanging around Severina, trying to make her tell him everything she knew. Lapin lay in wait for her at the gates of the children's home, ambushed her at discos and tagged along behind her like a dog.

«You were with them all the time. They'll kill you,» he said to frighten the girl. «If you tell me everything, we can make sure you're safe.»

«Didn't see nothing. Don't know nothing,» Severina doggedly maintained, twisting a lock of hair round her finger.

The investigator tried a different approach.

«You'll go down as an accomplice! They've got a real thing about pretty girls like you in the youth offender camps…»

Severina said nothing, batting her eyelids as if she didn't know what he was talking about.

«Come on, girl,» said Lapin, close to giving up. «You're so young. What are you doing?»

«I'm not doing anything,» said Severina, insistent as a woodpecker, and the captain mopped sweat off his brow.

Once he brought her a teddy bear, blushing at the absurdity of the gift. The girl hugged the teddy bear to her chest like a long-lost relative. From then on, it went everywhere with her. The investigator would often see her in town carrying it and wanted to take her in his arms like the toy.

When Severina was arrested near the school where she'd been selling heroin, however, the teddy was disembowelled and packets of white powder were found inside. Severina was taken to a cell and the teddy, turned inside out, was tossed into a rubbish bin where it looked like an abandoned baby.

In the cell, Severina curled up on the narrow bunk and immediately went to sleep to the sound of the dripping in the rusty sink, but a female police officer with hair like a wire brush woke her up and made her answer questions. In silken tones, she asked about Severina's friends, about drugs and life in the children's home but she didn't sound sincere and the girl grimaced, saying nothing or giving the wrong answers.

«Do you like it at the children's home?» the major asked. It was a stupid question and she was embarrassed.

Severina pointedly turned to face the wall.

«Who gave you the drugs?»

«I found them outside.»

«You'll come to no good,» the major said, a spiteful glint in her eyes as she left the cell.

The investigating officers gathered in a smoke-filled office. A dim light blinked wearily, barely illuminating the tired, sleepy faces.

«If she'd been outside my kids' school, I'd have used my bare hands and…» the lanky policeman demonstrated, putting his hands round his throat.

«What do you expect?» said another dismissively. «You know who she's working for.»

«We pick them up but the Prosecutor's Office just releases them,» a fat officer broke in, with an angry gesture.

«We should change places,» the lanky officer laughed. «Let the Prosecutor's Office catch them and we can release them.»

They all three fell silent. The fat cop finished his cigarette and went down to the cell.

«Drugs all over the place, gangsters.» He scratched the back of his neck. «You're only fourteen. What'll it be next?»

Severina lay unmoving. The officer shook her with all his strength and she slid off the bunk.

«It's your choice, kid,» he said. Realizing he'd underestimated his own strength, he helped her up. «It's either in and out of prison or you talk.» He took a report out of a file and got ready to write.

«I'm not a kid,» said Severina, pushing him away and rubbing her bruised knee.

«Who gave you the drugs?»

«I found them in the street.»

«What were you doing near the school?»

«Waiting for a friend.»

The officer spat and rubbed the spit with his boot. He wrote the report, which he balanced on his lap, with one hand and with the other he scratched the back of his neck wondering why he was bothering to dig out a statement like dirt under a finger nail if what appeared on paper was entirely the wrong way round.

«Who gave you the drugs?»

Severina was silent.

Once, when he was doing the rounds of the bandit dens, he'd come across Coffin. Sitting astride a chair, the gangster had said nothing, staring at the bridge of the fat man's nose and the policeman's shirt had been soaked through. With a nod to his bodyguards, Coffin stood up. He squeezed past the officer who shrank back against the wall when he felt a cold pistol hidden under a jacket against his stomach, and left the flat. From then on, whenever he heard Coffin's name mentioned, the officer felt a cold against his stomach as though he was up against the barrel of a gun and terror crept under his collar.